Based on the NWS Forecast (check the snow entry – blue bars) , 
We are cancelling the last three games tonight. The schedule tonight looks like:

Narwhals vs Dancing Greens at 4:50pm

Arrrnge vs Madison Blues at 6:00pm

Grayzly Bears vs Snow Witte – CANCELLED

Maroony Tunes vs Red Delicious – CANCELLED

ABBA: Gold vs Nightfuries – CANCELLED

This is reflected on the page https://www.madisongayhockey.org/teams-schedule/ We will make up those games the scrimmage week of March 10th. 

If you have scorebox for the 4:50pm or 6pm games, please still plan to show or get a replacement.

One thing our mid-season survey reflected was a need for greater clarity regarding how our sub system works. 

• Every Sunday we have league games, a script on the website runs at noon to check for players who have marked themselves absent as well as players who have volunteered to sub.
• The script analyzes each absentee and volunteer and uses a combination of skill level, times subbed, and game time to determine sub suggestions. If there are no subs at the appropriate sub level for an absentee, a Potential Sub will be selected (someone of a similar skill level). Each sub is only suggested once per email. For more on this algorithm see here.
• The script puts all this information plus pictures and contact info in an email (see pic below from Sunday’s email) and sends it to the captains.
• The team captains then use this info to select a sub and contact them.
• If the contacted player replies yes, all done! If the contacted player cannot sub that day and time, the captain contacts someone else until they find someone.

A note on last minute subs: yes, we still end up needing last minute subs. Life happens. Captains are instructed to make their best effort to match skill level and communicate with the opposing captains especially on last minute subs to address competitive balance.

Considerations: 

• PLEASE mark yourself absent if you know you’ll be absent for your game. You can do this weeks in advance if you know.
• Please do it before noon on Sunday of the game you’ll miss.
• Volunteer to sub by marking all the game you are able to sub on the website before noon on Sunday. 
• Make sure your contact info is up to date!

Thank you and thank you Randi for all your hard work to make this system work!

Hey MGHA!
It’s that time of year for our annual Town Hall meeting! The meeting will be in the basement of the Glass Nickel pizza as usual on Atwood. The meeting will be January 28th starting at 6:30 and we have the room until 10.  There will be pizza of several varieties so come grab a slice and check in on how the MGHA is doing.
Please take a look at the agenda as we will be discussing some formatting changes (as part of the meeting we will explain them).
AGENDA

• Introductions
  
  • Brief board introduction and our acting roles
    
• Presidential Address 
  

NEW BUSINESS

• Clarification of new forum for discussion 
  
• 5 minutes to introduce your topic of discussion and present your arguments
• 10 minutes total discussion for the topic after introduced, then it becomes old business
• Next meeting will have similar format to introduce old business again
• Summary of agenda with brief explanation
  
• Conduct form introduction  – Maggie
  
• HOps update – Tim
  
• Survey results summary high level, positives and negatives – Witte
  
• Actions taken in response 
• MGHA Classic Tournament
  
• Cap Ice discussion 
  
• Recap of all topics mentioned
  
• Open discussion
  

Hope to see you all there!
Cheers,Secretary Witte

Welcome back to hockey in the new year! 2019 is starting off with a bang with our challenge games… and more!

First, we’re having our normal 4 challenge games on January 6th. We’ll do 2 early and 2 late and sandwiched in between will be a half-ice skills clinic and a half-ice goalie curious session.

First, the challenge games… as usual, please sign up for a game where you can learn and play safely. While it’s good to challenge yourself, please only do so within your safe limits. Remember that in the advanced games, skaters do not ‘play down’ in the same way they do during the regular season MGHA games. As always, HOps reserves the right to shift players if we feel you have signed up for an unsafe level.

You may sign up for one game right away. On Saturday, January 5th at 4 PM, you may sign up for a second game if there are spaces available. We’re also looking for a few bench coaches for the beginner game. If you feel you have sound hockey knowledge and can help our beginners, feel free to sign up!

In the middle slot at 7:10 PM, we’re hosting two special events. First, we’re having a session we like to call ‘goalie curious’. Basically, if you’ve ever wanted to try goalie, now’s your chance. We have limited equipment and we’ll do what we can to get you suited up but this is first come, first served based on size. We want everyone to try it, but our resources are limited.

In addition to ‘goalie curious’, we’re hosting a mini skills clinic. This is intended as more of a shake-off-the-rust kind of clinic to get you back into the groove. This is more geared toward beginner and intermediate players, but all are welcome. Please sign up so that we know how many plan to attend.

The night will be scheduled as follows:

4:50 PM – High Intermediate Game
6:00 PM – Advanced Game
7:10 PM – Goalie Curious / Mini Skills Clinic
8:20 PM – Low Intermediate Game
9:30 PM – Beginner Game

See you on the ice!
-HOps (Tim, Brian, k8, Mark, Ashleigh, Sara, John)

January 6, 2019 Challenge Games

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Happy New Year all!

Hope everyone’s had a solid break for the last few weeks.

In case you missed the email or the facebook post, the board is trying to get a feel on how the season is going. We have two surveys for you all.

One for general league play information, and the second to gather your feedback in a more open response format on how the league is running. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to the Board if you have any questions. Note your responses are anonymous unless you place information in them that makes it otherwise.

Please complete both by January 10th!
Survey 1:https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/9NDMXVL

Survey 2:https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/93N266N

Thank you all and see you back on the ice soon! 
Secretary Witte

Our challenge games are coming up this weekend. Since it’s early in the season, we have some reminders.  PLEASE ONLY SIGN UP FOR ONE GAME until noon on Saturday, November 24th. Please sign up for a game where you can learn and play safely.  We’ll have two intermediate games (one for lower intermediate players and one for higher intermediate players), a game for beginners, and a game for advanced players.  It’s a good idea to challenge yourself as the season progresses, but only within your limits.  In the advanced games, skaters do not “play down” in some of the ways that they try to do in our regular season games.  More advanced players who sign up for a scrimmage below their skill level should facilitate game play for players who fit well in that skill level.  Inclusive play is exceptionally important in such a situation.  For safety, HOps reserves the right to shift players if we feel you have signed up for a level that doesn’t match your skill.

The games will be scheduled as follows:

5:15 PM – Low Intermediate Game
6:30 PM – Beginner Game
7:45 PM – Advanced Game
9:00 PM – High Intermediate Game

See you on the ice!
-HOps (Tim, Brian, k8, Mark, Ashleigh, Sara, John)

November 25, 2018 Challenge Games

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Hey everybody!

Thanks so much for all of the hard work during the evaluations the last couple of weeks.  We really appreciate it!

A quick note about the evaluation scrimmages from Sunday night.  We strive to always play the MGHA way (passing a lot, friendly play, etc) but evaluation scrimmages are a little different because we need to see where you fall in the spectrum for the sake of even team creation.  I apologize if this message was lost last night.  If you’re new to the league, please know that games throughout the season have a different pace and different feel.  As a developmental league, we strive to make sure everyone feels included and nobody feels overwhelmed.  We look forward to starting the season with all of you.

That said, we’re starting our season off with our annual team reveal and challenge game night!  We’ll have three scrimmage-style games on Sunday along with team reveal.  Here’s the schedule for October 14th:

• Beginner Scrimmage – 5:15 PM
• Advanced Scrimmage – 6:30 PM
• Team Reveal – 7:45 PM
• Intermediate Scrimmage – 9:00 PM

Team reveal is one of the best events of the season because it is where you learn what team you’re on and you have the opportunity to bond a little bit, learning names/pronouns and starting to think of team names.  It’s a fun night and I encourage everyone to show up for team reveal by 7:30 PM.

This is also our first challenge game night of the season.  As far as challenge games go, here are a few bits of information…

Please only sign up for one game (until 12 noon on Saturday, October 13th).  We want to make sure everyone has a chance to sign up (and not everyone in the league can check their computers or phones multiple times per day). As usual, there are 30 slots for skaters per game along with two roster spots for goalies.  You’ll need to sign into the website to sign up for a scrimmage slot.  I’ll put a link at the bottom of this email.

Unlike season games, challenge games are sorted based on skill level. Players choose at what level of play they can safely and most happily play.  Self-selection is a privilege and must be considered carefully.  It’s okay to play down a level, but you must understand that inclusive play is especially important.  A person playing down is there to facilitate fun and safe hockey play for newer skaters.  If you choose to play up, please be aware that the usual level of inclusive play does not apply.  Advanced skaters are there to challenge one another and work on their hockey skills.  Further, playing beyond one’s ability can create an unsafe environment for the individual skater and everyone else on the ice.

Particularly since this is the first scrimmage and in the interest of safety, Hockey Operations reserves the right to ask you to move to a different time slot.  This is not meant to single anyone out but to ensure that everyone can play safely and effectively.

As with last season, we’ll switch up the schedule for who has the early, middle, and late games for other challenge nights throughout the season.  Also, due to the limited ice time on Sunday, we’ll only have one intermediate slot.  That means you’ll need to sign up quickly.  If you sign up and cannot make it, please remove your name from the slot.  We’ll typically have two slots… one for lower and one for upper intermediate.

Here’s the link for the challenge game signup.  This link will not be valid until 8 PM on Tuesday, October 9.  Be sure to sign in!  

See you on the ice!

-HOps (Tim, Mark, Sara, Brian, John, Ashleigh, k8)

Challenge Games - October 14, 2018

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